About

$872,133

pledged of $600,000 goal

18,209

backers

"Bee and PuppyCat" is a very popular original cartoon created by Natasha Allegri. In it, Bee, an out-of-work twenty-something, has a life-changing collision with a mysterious creature she names PuppyCat ("A cat?... or maybe a dog?"). Between space and time, Bee and PuppyCat take on an intergalactic babysitting gig to pay another month’s rent. Now, you can help Bee write a happy ending for PuppyCat’s tale of betrayal, intrigue, and magical sparkle transformations.

Amassing 4 million views since its July release, the original 10-minute cartoon stands as a favorite among animation fans the world over (watch it again, why don't you http://youtu.be/lOG_UtLxh58 ). Now, overwhelmed with your emails and comments asking for more adventures of Bee and PuppyCat, we want to produce a Bee and PuppyCat series exclusively for our YouTube channel, Cartoon Hangover. But we need your help.

Our minimum goal is to produce six, brand new, six-minute Bee and PuppyCat cartoons. The more money we raise, the more cartoons we make. The series will be overseen by the creator, Natasha Allegri. Production will begin immediately, the first episode will be released in the the summer of 2014.

We know what you're thinking, and you're right; this is a lot of money for a handful of cartoons. To make a television-quality production, though, isn't cheap, and it takes a lot longer than most of us would like, too. Here's why we're asking for $600,000.

Bee and PuppyCat, like most of your favorite cartoons, will be "traditionally animated," which means that each element is drawn by hand. It is time - and labor - intensive.

Each cartoon's pre-production stage will consist of writing, storyboarding, casting and recording (in a top-of-the-line audio production facility), creating an animatic (shooting the storyboard with the final recorded dialogue), designing (backgrounds, characters, props, effects), coloring (of those models, effects, backgrounds, props, etc), and timing (which requires the director to go frame by frame creating exposure sheets). There will be as many as 25 cast- and crew-members on pre-production side alone.

After pre-production, we'll send all those assets to an international studio where dozens of artists will draw every element for every frame, layout, key pose, animate, in-between, ink and paint, and, finally, composite. The animation then returns to sunny Burbank, CA, where Natasha and her team will give everything a good look and recommend changes. The overseas studio will make those changes and, after a little back and forth, will deliver the final animation.

Here's what happens in the post-production stage: the animation is edited; sound effects, including foley, are recorded and added; and the composer creates the score. The sounds effects, music, and dialog are finally blended together with the animation in the last step of production, the final mix.

So, yes, these cartoons tend to be a bit pricey. But the good news is Frederator and Cartoon Hangover have tremendous partners who are eager to reward your helping the Bee and PuppyCat Kickstarter. They include:

As an independent production company, Frederator Studios requires outside funding to produce cartoons.

As you can imagine, the process of rounding up financial support this way takes a long time - years, usually.

In most cases, the companies providing funding want a voice in how that cartoon is made. We've decided seeking funding from fans through Kickstarter is not only the fastest way to bring you Natasha Allegri's Bee and PuppyCat series, but also the best way to preserve the creator's artistic vision.

This also gives you, the fans, a chance to help make a show you love possible! By working with you we can help make the show faster and better than by traditional funding streams.

If we're fortunate enough to exceed our goal, we'll produce more episodes while continuing to reward you for your support. Here's what we currently have planned...

Bee and PuppyCat is brought to you by Natasha Allegri, Frederator Studios, the production company, and Cartoon Hangover, the YouTube channel.

Natasha Allegri created "Bee and PuppyCat" to be part of Cartoon Hangover's anthology of original animated shorts. She and Frederator Studios then spent more than eighteen months making the film, initially split into two parts.

Since 2010, Natasha has been a key contributor to Cartoon Network's hit series, Adventure Time, as both a character designer and a storyboard revisionist. It was her gender-swapped characters Fionna and Cake, first seen through her own Tumblr page, which led to two (so far) episodes featuring the show's "bizarro" characters. The characters were such a hit that publisher BOOM! Studios asked Natasha to write and illustrate the Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake comic book series.

Frederator Studios is the independent animation studio behind some of the most beloved animated series of all time, including ChalkZone, The Fairly OddParents, Fanboy and Chum Chum, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Adventure Time, and Bravest Warriors. Founded by Fred Seibert in 1998, Frederator has produced more than 200 short films and 16 TV series. Frederator is well known for its cartoon anthology series Oh Yeah! Cartoons and Random! Cartoons, descendants of Seibert’s What a Cartoon! series of shorts, intended to give a voice to cartoonists and animators. "Bee and PuppyCat" broke through Frederator’s Too Cool! Cartoons shorts program produced for Cartoon Hangover.

Cartoon Hangover launched on YouTube on November 8, 2012, as part of YouTube’s original channel initiative. Since then, the channel has added more than 780,000 subscribers and had more than 50,000,000 views, making it the third fastest growing channel of all the YouTube funded channels. In October 2012, Cartoon Hangover launched its first series, Bravest Warriors, created by the mind behind Adventure Time, Pendleton Ward.

Risks and challenges

Frederator is expert at producing cartoons so there is very little risk that a cartoon will not be made. Frederator has made hundreds of hours of cartoons. The producers working on Bee and PuppyCat have decades of experience producing content and Frederator itself has been in business for over 15 years. Frederator has worked with dozens and dozens of creators to bring their visions to screen including the original two-part Bee and PuppyCat cartoon with Natasha. At this budget level, Backers should feel highly confident that the Bee and PuppyCat series will have a high production quality and be totally awesome.

When it comes to the Kickstarter we're working with Breadpig, Inc to make sure everything goes well. For specific rewards we're working with other partners that have helped us bring merchandise to you in the past for other Frederator Properties!